In case you missed it, Kimmel asked Clinton if he had tried to get his hands on classified UFO files, which brought a huge obligatory laugh from the studio audience. “Sort of,” Clinton replied, which elicited even more bellylaffs. “I think it was at the beginning of my second term,” he went on. Then came another vintage performance in which he shifted the conversation to the “Independence Day” sci-fi flick, Area 51 — “There were no aliens down there” (more laughter) — and the inevitability of discovering ET life in the “ever-expanding universe.” Bottom line: I was on top of things and there’s nothing there.

When asked about his efforts to retrieve federal UFO documents, Bill Clinton talked about “Independence Day” and riffed about the potential for life on extrasolar planets./CREDIT: nydailynews.com

De Void hates to keep kicking a dead horse, but god almighty, isn’t there anyone in this country besides comedians who can bring themselves to discuss The Great Taboo with a former chief executive? Or, even better, confront him with the facts?

“I had all the Roswell papers reviewed — everything,” Clinton told Kimmel. Well, no, that first-term initiative was triggered by Rep. Steven Schiff (R-NM) in response to constituents’ lingering suspicions about what happened in Roswell in 1947. Acting on Schiff’s request, the General Accounting Office reported in 1995 that the military had destroyed all outgoing messages and administrative records from Roswell Army Air Field from 1947 through 1949. To his credit, Clinton made his curiosity public in Belfast — same year, 1995 — after having dispatched associate AG Webster Hubbell on a UFO fishing expedition even earlier in his first term. Twenty years later, Hubbell still gets all hinky and weird about what he did or didn’t find out.

Then, of course, in 2012, there was the Chase Brandon kerfuffle. That’s when the veteran CIA officer went national about how, in mid 1990s, around the same time Hubbell was scrounging for documents, he found a stash of smoking-gun Roswell material in the Agency’s Historical Intelligence Collection archives. “I took the box down, lifted the lid up, rummaged around inside it, put the box back on the shelf,” Brandon told the Huffington Post, “and said, ‘My god, it really happened!'” He didn’t report it up the ladder, and not even his boss, retired CIA chief Robert Gates, attempted to question Brandon’s veracity.

All of which brings us back to John Podesta, who has famously and repeatedly called for the declassification of UFO data. As recently as last May, after listening to eyewitness testimony at the Citizen Hearing for Disclosure in Washington, Podesta told the New York Times, “They were interesting, credible people who had observed aerial phenomena that were unexplained and worthy of additional follow-up. Going back and looking at and declassifying whatever government documents exist is a smart thing to do.”

Clinton’s Jimmy Kimmel laughtrax session this week made Podesta look like a conspiracy zealot who can’t give it up. Now, as senior counselor to the Obama White House, Podesta has a choice to make. He could, for starters, get Hubbell, Chase, and any number of players in the same room and figure out where it went off the rails 20 years ago. Or, like his old boss, he could just walk away. Because it’s easier. Same as it ever was.

27 comments on “John who?”

It is worth noting that no one, and that certainly includes ex presidents, goes on a major late night talk show without going over with the shows producers exactly what will be asked and what the guest wants to be asked. Jimmy Fallon asked that question because Clinton wanted him to asked it.

Wait a second….I stumbled over your blog about two years via Google or some other link. Your blog is the most intelligent and legitimate blog on this subject anywhere. It’s that way (in my mind) by the mere fact that you’re a working journalist for a real newspaper who I assume is not some soft in the head, wack job.

The point I’m trying to make is that any change, especially change in which you’re tilting windmills is going to take a long time and a lot of dedication. I know you’ve got it. Just think back to that day while fishing in the gulf when that extra-ordinary thing happened. Remember? You referenced it once in an e-amil to me. It really happened and wasn’t just in your head. So that’s why you do this.

Thanks for that, and you raise a good point about a certain species of skeptic. Let’s say I don’t believe in, oh, breatharianism, and I think people who do are zealots and crazies. Why would I waste my time at that site? Why would I associate with those freaks? Why would I revisit that page again and again and again to remind them over and over and over about how stupid and gullible they are? There’s gotta be a clinical term for that sort of psychology; I’m fairly certain it has nothing to do with the subject of their fixation and everything to do with fundamental personal issues about loss of control. Just a couple of sentences from these very specific types and it’s like they’ve stepped in front of a fluoroscope.

Billy, the paywall is a killer for you, no doubt. It makes it impossible to have a conversation here unless you sign up, and most won’t.

Your articles are great and I look forward to them, and I also enjoy the comments from the gallery, especially from the skeptics. My belief is that they are actually looking to be convinced of the impossible. They wouldn’t be here in the first place if it didn’t interest them. I hope the pay to play eventually goes away, but I also am hoping for disclosure…

Holy smokes man! Don’t give up. We need you. Keep up the fight. It’s spring, the flowers are blooming and baseball is starting. We need our DeVoid. I get around the paywall by using different computers and my iPhone.

A couple of things…Hillary may run in the next election so Bill (Clinton, not our Billy) surely will not open Pandoras Box and suffer her wrath for messing up her chances. I know I wouldn’t. Kimmel is a laughs guy and he doesn’t give a hoot about the Great Taboo. This was about keeping it light and maybe he’ll get Hillary on if and when she becomes the first female POTUS.

As for the auto-laughs from the audience, hasn’t mass conditioning worked amazingly well? Scarily well if you ask me. So well that practically all who are now in charge are a product of it.

Just reading your article on 4-12-14 and can’t help but laugh since I posted basically the same points you bring up on YT last night on “President Bill Clinton on Jimmy Kimmel Live PART 3” Here’s my post:

He lied, He said he had the “Roswell papers looking into”
First and foremost there are no “Roswell papers to look into!
Do your research, everyone knows that in 1995 the GAO
(General Accounting Office) investigated the Roswell
crash for Congressmen Steven H Schiff of New Mexico
(who died 3 yrs later from “Cancer”) and found ALL
the records had been destroyed!!! So how could he or
the AF(1995 and 1997 report they reviewed the records)

Simple answer, someone is lying or all the REAL records
are hidden and the GAO didn’t see them and that opens up
a new debate why only the AF and the President can see
these records!

Clinton(I never had sex) UFO statement contradicts
what he said to Webb Hubbell in his book!
It also disagrees with Chase Brandon former
CIA statements!
Who are we to believe.
If Kimmel had done his research before asking that question
he may have gotten a better answer!
Peace

I was going to toss John Podesta in but figured that was enough for the YT crowd
who don’t do any real research and know very little about the facts.
Anyway, I just found it amusing we both saw Clintons comments as not truthful
or at the very least disinformation! Thanks!!

I’ve just enjoyed re-reading the Web Hubbell post and something jumped out at me which i think bears pointing out. It’s a critique, of sorts, and so i hope you’ll recall that i’d rather defer to the professionals. And i’m hardly an LTE-harpy, i promise.
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In a time when elected officials can get instant air-time to yarp ceaselessly about how the US has been taken over by “nazi communists” it should be obvious that one gives the opposition an edge at one’s peril. These questions you asked him might be considered red flags:
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“… how much time did you invest in your investigation? Was it a solo project or did you have staffers working with you?”
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I think it would be best to avoid that line of inquiry until later. It’s just too easy a target — one that would inevitably be raised in any case, but putting it out there like that in the initial approach would likely cause second thoughts.
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Having said that … i do think that his response sure looked as if it was about all he was going to give from the get-go. “Blink? Blink-blink-blink?” Indeed!
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All the same, don’t spook ‘em by writing the opposition talking points in your questions.
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And always remember: we’re laughing with you, Billy. It’s a kind of group therapy thing, i guess.

I was pleased that he didn’t completely blow it off as a lot of nonsense but was also disappointed by his “nothing there” remark. I’ll grant him that it’s a difficult subject to get into on a talk show schedule but mentioning Podesta was a no-brainer. However, michael’s point about not making waves for Hillary makes sense.
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Come to think of it, if Ms Clinton were to become #45 we’d be in an interesting situation, wouldn’t we? Too bad Rocky isn’t around for that.

You should ..wright.. a book alright, Billy. The only “believers” in UFOs are the ones who profit from books. Only a ninny would interpret Clinton’s remarks about the possibility of there being aliens somewhere on the universe as a tacit admission of there being evidence we’ve been visited. Dream on, boys and girls.

Great article Billy your knowledge of the great taboo is tremendous. You should wright a book. The reason he is talking about the great taboo is to get the focus off Hilary ,regarding ufo’s .Its working.

I find myself in the unpleasant situation of potentially defending a politician, but there could be several reasons why an ex-president wouldn’t want to jump in with both feet. If someone helps, they help. If not, then the world just carries on. Perhaps ufology is the world’s biggest missed opportunity, not just the odd president’s. Besides, it isn’t only groups like the alleged MJ12 that work behind the scenes.

Chances are, not a soul in the audience knew a thing about the “Rockefeller initiative” so yeah, for all intents and purposes there was nothing or no one for Clinton to repudiate. But he could’ve given the issue a tremendous boost with a “throwaway” line like “But you know what, Jimmy, some people are still working on this thing — you should get my old friend John Podesta up here one night and ask him what he thinks.” I mean, that’s it. That’s all it would’ve taken. It’s not like JP would’ve been caught off guard — he’s been openly pressing for transparency for more than 10 years. You’re either serious about moving forward or you’re not. Podesta has stepped up to the plate; Cinton took a pass and recycled Reagan. I mean, so what?

After watching the clip, I’m not sure if Clinton’s interview did Podesta such a disservice. The former prez resurrected Reagan’s idea of a united Earth in the face of ET hostility and appeared to suggest that ET life is a good possibility.
Clinton sought information, while in office, to better understand what the military did have at Area51 and it doesn’t preclude the possibility that relevant information was withheld (or that other information proved more relevant). Clinton knows how to keep an audience on his side, but at the same time he didn’t come out with a Menzelian rebuttal and ask to move on.

Some of us want to understand, while others are happy to accept any plausible explanation. I’ll provide an example: Some video footage showing lights (distance difficult to determine). Someone claimed that it was a rescue helicopter; one was in the vicinity at the time. Sounds plausible, so was that the answer? No, because the route of the helicopter could be plotted from available radar data, showing that its location and time didn’t match with the known details of the video. While in this instance it seems probable that another aircraft was responsible for the sighting, there’s often a difference between a seemingly plausible explanation and the truth. In this instance the difference seems trivial, but there are plenty of cases where the difference is significant.
Wanting to understand the facts, when others don’t care, is simply a matter of intellectual honesty. Clinton and Podesta seem to share this quality. (Hmm, just seen a flaw in this argument, but it just goes to show that real life ain’t always black and white.)